The Coalition Provisional Authority governing Iraq invited commercial airlines to submit proposals for passenger service to Baghdad International Airport on July 1, signaling reconstruction there is at a turning point.

Air Force engineers home-based at Tyndall AFB, Fla., have repaired runway damage and established airfield lighting systems required to resume commercial operations. Work is managed and performed by the 477 Air Expeditionary Group, a unit that formed at the Baghdad International Airport for the purpose under the command of Air Force Col. Roger Bick. The unit has installed more than five miles of airfield cable and put in more than 150 edge-way, taxiway and threshold light fixtures, each with individual transformers, as well as repaired existing lighting systems neglected more than a dozen years.

BAGHDAD Airport damage is cleaned up.

Although a start date for resumption of operations has not been set the solicitation suggests reopening is imminent, CPA officials say. They expect to select carriers around July 10.

Preparations are also under way to reopen Basrah International Airport this summer and eventually open Mosul Airport to international air travel for the first time, CPA reports.

Air carriers signing up for Baghdad will have to make do with limited support facilities at first. They are warned not to expect fuel, catering or other ground services.

Also reporting progress at the Baghdad airport, San Francisco-based Bechtel, which is USAID's prime contractor for Iraq reconstruction, reported June 27 it is constructing temporary terminal areas, repairing sanitation facilities, beginning to provide communications capabilities and providing emergency power. A series of generators now delivers 6.5 Mw of reliable electricity.

In all, Bechtel says it has 87 personnel working in offices and camps in Baghdad, Umm Qasr, Basrah, and Al Hillah.

At the port of Umm Qasr dredging, removal of unexploded ordnance and sunken vessels and power repair work continues. Crews are preparing to receive seven World Food Program vessels with approximately 103,000 tonnes of rice and bagged wheat flour scheduled to arrive over the next few weeks.

Bridge repairs also continue with a focus on the Al Mat Bridge bypass in western Iraq and bridge-and-pipeline infrastructure southwest of Kirkuk in northern Iraq. A partially collapsed bridge on Highway 10 also fell on June 14 and Bechtel was authorized to mobilize for its removal. Work is under way, the company says.

The company says a fifth in its series of contractor conferences is planned for Basrah in mid-July. Bechtel's June 18 contractor conference in Baghdad drew roughly 1,000 attendees. The purpose was to reach out to Iraqi contractors, obtain prequalification information from them, create realistic expectations, and explain the subcontracting process.

More than 7,800 companies from 93 countries have registered on Bechtel's supplier database of companies interested in participating in the reconstruction of Iraq.